A new report from J.P. Morgan’s energy team reminds investors that despite the Q4 meltdown from declining crude oil prices, MLPs still clawed out a 5% total return in 2014, far better than the -8% total return for the overall energy sector.

Others are more pessimistic on the group: S&P Capital IQ's Stewart Glickman says there isn't a single E&P MLP that has healthy fundamentals, though some companies such as PAA and RGP are now cheap enough to be potentially good deals.

Renaissance Capital's Nick Einhorn thinks a better alternative is to invest in funds that own groups of the MLPs.

The Goldman team recommends refiners such as Marathon Petroleum (NYSE:MPC) and Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX), as well as midstream companies that are less sensitive to oil prices and offer the potential for dividend growth, including EQT Midstream Partners (NYSE:EQM), Kinder Morgan (NYSE:KMI) and Cheniere Energy (NYSEMKT:LNG).

With capital spending sure to take a hit and oil prices likely to remain volatile, oil service companies probably aren’t the way to go, but Goldman considers the more defensive names such as Atwood Oceanics (NYSE:ATW), Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB) and Oceaneering (NYSE:OII) as the best of a bad lot.

EQT says it plans to drill 181 Marcellus wells with an average lateral length of 5,500 ft., all of which will be on multi-well pads to maximize operational efficiency and well economics; EQT owns ~580K net Marcellus acres.

The recent wild behavior in the energy MLP sector - tumbling nearly 3x more than the S&P 500 during the first 10 trading days of October before rallying this week, with an assist from Shell Midstream Partners (NYSE:SHLX), which went public in a $1.1B offering and gained 46% - should not weaken the investment case for those who are choosy and hold for the long term, analysts say.

Investors worry that some E&P companies won’t be able to make money in a low oil price environment, and MLPs in the same business face tough times, but those upstream MLPs make up only ~5% of the total value of the sector, perhaps suggesting that the across-the-board decline was too extreme.

MLPs may remain expensive relative to their own history, but their average distribution of 5.5% in annual income - which should grow at ~7%/year in the next few years to 12%-plus - is plenty attractive relative to everything else.

To steer clear of the risk that lower energy prices will crimp profits, analysts advise concentrating on midstream operators; among the most stable are ETP, ETE, EQM, MMP, PAA, PAGP and SXL.

EQT Corp. (NYSE:EQT) ended regular trading with a 4.2% gain despite Q2 results that saw the oil and gas company missing analyst projections with its earnings and revenues.

The shortfall was primarily in the E&P segment, where earnings were hurt by a higher basis differential and modestly lower than expected production.

Reiterating its Buy rating, Maxim Group attributes the gain to EQT's update on the internal valuation of its general partner ownership in EQT Midstream Partners (NYSE:EQM) and its intent to explore options for capturing the value; the firm also cites EQT's increase in its Marcellus net acreage to 580K from 560K. Maxim reiterates its Buy rating and $135 price target on EQT (Briefing.com).

EQT Corp. (EQT+1.4%) and NextEra Energy (NEE+0.6%) say they are forming a joint venture to build a new 330-mile natural gas pipeline to connect the Marcellus and Utica shale supply to southeast U.S. markets.

The Mountain Valley pipeline will head from northern West Virginia to a point near the Virginia-North Carolina border, and will send along ~2B cf/day of natural gas when it comes online, probably in late 2018.

EQT will be the operator and majority owner of the project, which needs approval from the FERC.

The Jupiter system gathers EQT's Marcellus shale production and consists of ~35 miles of natural gas gathering pipeline, 21.3K horsepower of compression, and includes 970M cf/day of pipeline capacity; the Jupiter assets are supported by a gathering agreement with EQT that includes 10-year firm capacity reservation commitments.

EQT also announces an asset exchange agreement with Range Resources (RRC); EQT will receive ~73K net acres and ~900 producing wells in the Permian Basin, while RRC will get EQT's interest in 138K net acres and the supporting gathering system in the Nora Field of Virginia, giving RRC 100% ownership of Nora.